tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-122060982012-01-17T18:47:59.084-05:00ScienceHzonoreply@blogger.comBlogger1551100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-29651988186370835092012-01-17T18:47:00.000-05:002012-01-17T18:47:59.093-05:00

In a rare find, Egyptian and Swiss archaeologists have unearthed a roughly 1,100 year-old tomb of a female singer in the Valley of the Kings, an antiquities official said Sunday.It is the only tomb of a woman not related to the ancient Egyptian royal families ever found in the Valley of the Kings, said Mansour Boraiq, the top government official for the Antiquities' Ministry in the city of Luxor,

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-76333338861816164462011-12-05T18:08:00.000-05:002011-12-05T18:08:39.380-05:00

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5).The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-66410882057053077532011-04-20T21:55:00.000-04:002011-04-20T21:55:55.271-04:00

The largest fossil spider uncovered to date once ensnared prey back in the age of dinosaurs, scientists find.The spider, named Nephila jurassica, was discovered buried in ancient volcanic ash in Inner Mongolia, China. Tufts of hairlike fibers seen on its legs showed this 165-million-year-old arachnid to be the oldest known species of the largest web-weaving spiders alive today — the golden

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-23682010133457168792011-03-25T07:36:00.002-04:002011-03-25T18:30:04.816-04:00

It’s one of the key truths of the consumer electronics biz: Prices will drop like a rock soon after you buy your new toy. Oh, there are exceptions, like the iPad and iPhone, but you know the drill — buy it today, see a lower price in a month. Amazingly there is a pricey camera, the 16.2-megapixel Nikon D7000, that’s currently defying the laws of CE gravity—if you can even find one. Let’s see why.

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-13221986975043360652011-03-07T07:06:00.000-05:002011-03-07T07:07:08.573-05:00

People are discovering antique fishing tackle all the time, in closets and at garage sales, but none of that compares to discoveries made recently by archaeologists at two of the Channel Islands off Southern California.Looking for signs of ancient human settlement, they unearthed meticulously-crafted spearheads and other tools (see photo at right) that date back 12,000 years and provide insight

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-48198189054370538672011-02-03T07:30:00.001-05:002011-03-07T07:08:20.556-05:00

HIRBET MADRAS, Israel – Israeli archaeologists presented a newly uncovered 1,500-year-old church in the Judean hills on Wednesday, including an unusually well-preserved mosaic floor with images of lions, foxes, fish and peacocks.The Byzantine church located southwest of Jerusalem, excavated over the last two months, will be visible only for another week before archaeologists cover it again with

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-4992273219753364492011-01-18T17:44:00.000-05:002011-01-18T17:44:49.301-05:00

A new University of Florida study following the evolution of lice shows modern humans started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago, a technology which enabled them to successfully migrate out of Africa. Principal investigator David Reed, associate curator of mammals at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, studies lice in modern humans to better understand human evolution and

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-88337829385537591612011-01-02T07:34:00.000-05:002011-01-02T07:34:07.751-05:00

By reconstructing the brains of extinct birds, researchers could shed light on when birds evolved into creatures of flight.Overwhelming evidence suggests birds evolved from dinosaurs some 150 million years ago, but one of the missing pieces to the evolutionary puzzle is how such birds took to the air.Scientists in Scotland are focusing on changes in the size of a part of the rear of the brain.

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-56735192462412010632010-12-04T07:54:00.000-05:002010-12-04T07:54:29.326-05:00

BEIJING – A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 302 miles per hour (486 kilometers per hour) Friday during a test run of a yet-to-be opened link between Beijing and Shanghai, state media said.The Xinhua News Agency said it was the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train. Other types of trains in other countries have traveled faster.A specially modified

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-22400918021594225052010-10-13T23:35:00.002-04:002010-10-13T23:42:18.185-04:00

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – The last of the Chilean miners, the foreman who held them together when they were feared lost, was raised from the depths of the earth Wednesday night — a joyous ending to a 69-day ordeal that riveted the world. No one has ever been trapped so long and survived.Luis Urzua ascended smoothly through 2,000 feet of rock, completing a 22 1/2-hour rescue operation that unfolded

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-88869630773762038152010-10-11T22:44:00.000-04:002010-10-11T22:46:19.127-04:00

Purdue University professor, Japanese Ei-ichi Negishi is a co-recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shares the award with Japanese Akira Suzuki of Hokkaido University and American Richard Heck of the University of Delaware. Together, their work created a method to build complex organic molecules that are now used to manufacture a range of products - from pharmaceuticals to

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-78275382178940665922010-10-11T22:32:00.001-04:002010-10-11T22:35:40.125-04:00

The Nobel Foundation has awarded one of its famed prizes to a pair of researchers who developed a carbon substrate that's so flat it's considered a brand new material. The breakthrough could lead to ultrafast microchip transistors and other advances.The Nobel Prize for Physics went to Andre Geim, and Konstantin Novoselov, whose work in quantum physics yielded a new material called grapheme. The

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-53832940901587838452010-10-09T14:31:00.002-04:002010-10-09T14:47:23.447-04:00

BEIJING — Liu Xiaobo, an impassioned literary critic, political essayist and democracy advocate repeatedly jailed by the Chinese government for his activism, has won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”Mr. Liu, 54, perhaps China’s best known dissident, is serving an 11-year term on subversion charges, in a cell 300

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-2536833838510960522010-10-05T09:35:00.000-04:002010-10-05T09:38:33.757-04:00

STOCKHOLM – Two Russian-born scientists shared the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for "groundbreaking experiments" with the thinnest, strongest material known to mankind — a carbon vital for the creation of faster computers and transparent touch screens.University of Manchester professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov used Scotch tape to isolate graphene, a form of carbon only one atom

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-56789466907245678302010-10-04T09:49:00.000-04:002010-10-05T09:54:19.614-04:00

STOCKHOLM — Robert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for developing in-vitro fertilization, a breakthrough that has helped millions of infertile couples worldwide have children.Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, started working on IVF as early as the 1950s. He developed the technique, in which egg cells are fertilized outside

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-88799740511771368762010-04-16T20:39:00.000-04:002010-04-16T20:40:32.787-04:00

The 2010 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on Monday, April 12, 2010. In journalism, The Washington Post won four awards while The New York Times won three.[1] For the first time, an online source, ProPublica, won in what had previously been the sole province of print.[1] A musical, Next to Normal, won the Drama award for the first time in 14 years.[2] Country singer-songwriter Hank Williams, who died

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-68445759988359430732010-04-12T23:29:00.001-04:002010-04-12T23:33:17.201-04:00

LONDON – Scientists using a remote-controlled submarine have discovered the deepest known volcanic vent and say the superheated waters inside could contain undiscovered marine species and perhaps even clues to the origin of life on earth.Experts aboard the RRS James Cook said they found the underwater volcanic vent more than three miles (five kilometers) beneath the surface of the Caribbean in an

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-60912789904719061182010-03-25T20:24:00.000-04:002010-03-25T20:25:45.910-04:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Genetic material pulled from a pinky finger bone found in a Siberian cave shows a new and unknown type of pre-human lived alongside modern humans and Neanderthals, scientists reported on Wednesday.The creature, nicknamed "Woman X" for the time being, could have lived as recently as 30,000 years ago and appears only distantly related to modern humans or Neanderthals, the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-86145754986809344442010-01-22T07:21:00.000-05:002010-01-22T07:22:35.123-05:00

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – A $10.5 million research project aimed at mapping the DNA sequence of sunflowers could one day yield a towering new variety for both food and fuel.Researchers envision crossbreeding a standard sunflower with the Silverleaf species out of Texas to produce a hybrid with bright yellow flowers bursting with tasty seeds and thick stalks filled with complex sugars that can be turned

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-87655132468547441282010-01-17T08:59:00.001-05:002010-01-17T09:01:43.259-05:00

Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing — an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David's reign. The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible's Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.) Until now, many scholars have

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-21446614507484497562010-01-06T20:34:00.001-05:002010-01-06T20:38:43.335-05:00

WASHINGTON – The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the earliest image yet of the universe — just 600 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was just a toddler.Scientists released the photo Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It's the most complete picture of the early universe so far, showing galaxies with stars that are already hundreds of millions of years

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-54056693961226699332009-10-12T21:37:00.001-04:002009-10-12T21:40:27.273-04:00

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (Reuters) - The path to the first Nobel prize in economics shared by a woman wound through forests in Madagascar, rangelands in East Africa, irrigation systems in Nepal and the jails of the United States.Elinor Ostrom, 76, a multidisciplinary academic at Indiana University, told reporters on Monday that her research found the best solutions to global problems like deforestation

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-26951601271972813212009-10-11T21:03:00.001-04:002009-10-11T21:30:05.346-04:00

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Herta Mueller, a Romanian-born writer who escaped Nicolae Ceausescu’s police state two years before the Berlin Wall fell and has become one of reunified Germany’s best known novelists, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. “With the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose,” 56-year-old Mueller “depicts the landscape of the dispossessed,” the Swedish Academy said

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-42228884962546668082009-10-11T08:56:00.000-04:002009-10-11T08:58:07.932-04:00

MEXICO CITY – Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.Or is it?Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012"

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-16196630602455724802009-10-09T06:59:00.001-04:002009-10-09T07:01:28.262-04:00

OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-73498985206732716792009-10-06T19:12:00.001-04:002009-10-06T19:15:47.353-04:00

LONDON – A tale of political intrigue set during the reign of King Henry VIII won the prestigious Man Booker prize for fiction Tuesday.Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" scooped the 50,000-pound ($80,000) prize. Mantel's novel charts the upheaval caused by the king's desire to marry Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of royal adviser Thomas Cromwell.Mantel's novel beat stiff competition from a

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-31403948325041165692009-10-06T06:53:00.002-04:002009-10-06T06:58:39.955-04:00

Three scientists who created the technology behind digital photography and helped link the world through fiber-optic networks shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday.Charles K. Kao was cited for his breakthrough involving the transmission of light in fiber optics while Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith were honored for inventing an imaging semiconductor circuit known as the CCD

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-57658762470294729252009-10-05T20:57:00.003-04:002009-10-06T06:59:36.046-04:00

Three American scientists who made key discoveries about how living cells age have received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The winners are Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco; Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; and Jack Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.The scientists all study telomeres — structures that act

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-23323571978345828732009-10-05T20:32:00.001-04:002009-10-05T20:35:57.532-04:00

Figuring out the story of human origins is like assembling a huge, complicated jigsaw puzzle that has lost most of its pieces. Many will never be found, and those that do turn up are sometimes hard to place. Every so often, though, fossil hunters stumble upon a discovery that fills in a big chunk of the puzzle all at once - and simultaneously reshapes the very picture they thought they were

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-85095904817828170352009-06-27T22:50:00.000-04:002009-06-27T23:12:07.981-04:00

The International Space Station (ISS) is easy to spot with the naked eye if you know when and where to look. A new notification service on Twitter will tell you exactly when to go out and look up.As with many data services and applications (or apps, as developers call them) these days, this one was created by a couple guys who were interested in the topic.Dutch science reporter Govert Schilling

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-55446938151655375702008-12-29T21:05:00.000-05:002008-12-29T21:08:35.191-05:00

Eager for this year to end? Bad news: you'll have to wait an extra second for 2009. On December 31, the planet's official timekeepers will add a “leap second” to the coordinated universal time scale (UTC) followed around the world. The additional second makes up for the difference in two clocks – one based on Earth’s rotation and the other on the more precise atomic time of the UTC.In the U.S.,

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-7328108088792533932008-11-27T11:08:00.001-05:002008-11-27T11:10:19.232-05:00

WASHINGTON – It's not just families that are getting together this Thanksgiving week. The three brightest objects in the night sky — Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon — will crowd around each other for an unusual group shot.Starting Thanksgiving evening, Jupiter and Venus will begin moving closer so that by Sunday and Monday, they will appear 2 degrees apart, which is about a finger width held

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-5405258099641054452008-11-25T19:58:00.001-05:002008-11-25T20:01:32.957-05:00

OSLO (Reuters) - Giant cave bears froze to death during the last Ice Age in Europe about 28,000 years ago, according to a study on Wednesday that cleared human hunters of driving them to extinction thousands of years later.The largely vegetarian bears, weighing up to a tonne and bigger than modern polar bears or Kodiak bears, apparently died off as a sharp cooling of the climate led to a freeze

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-88719563188185368622008-11-23T10:40:00.003-05:002008-11-23T10:56:36.606-05:00

Researchers said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer's books. The findings could put an end to centuries of speculation about the exact resting spot of Copernicus, a priest and astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe.Polish

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-15751879663265662202008-11-14T18:26:00.000-05:002008-11-14T18:28:43.626-05:00

Morning Edition, November 14, 2008 · Astronomers are getting their first real glimpses of planets in orbit around distant stars. Over the past decade, more than 300 otherworldly worlds have been detected indirectly — typically their gravitational pull makes their host-stars wobble and astronomers can pick up that wobble. But the most recent planet discoveries are actual photo-ops.For the first

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-86610986850701239162008-11-01T18:16:00.002-04:002008-11-01T18:25:08.079-04:00

A piece of space station trash the size of a refrigerator is poised to plunge through the Earth's atmosphere late Sunday, more than a year after an astronaut tossed it overboard.8:08 p.m. ET, 10/31/08" />NASA and the U.S. Space Surveillance Network are tracking the object — a 1,400-pound (635-kilogram) tank of toxic ammonia coolant thrown from the international space station — to make sure it

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-24442423621440098872008-11-01T18:13:00.001-04:002008-11-01T18:15:01.491-04:00

A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia, tossed from the international space station last year, is expected to hit earth tomorrow afternoon or evening. The 1,400-pound object was deliberately jettisoned — by hand — from the ISS's robot arm in July 2007. Since the time of re-entry is uncertain, so is the location. "NASA expects up to 15 pieces of the tank to survive the searing hot temperatures

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-43873516211960166902008-10-29T22:05:00.001-04:002008-10-29T22:07:42.878-04:00

WASHINGTON – Earth's first nearly full look at Mercury reveals that the tiny lifeless planet took a far greater role in shaping itself than was thought, with volcanoes spewing "mysterious dark blue material."New images from NASA's Messenger space probe should help settle a decades-old debate about what caused parts of Mercury to be somewhat smoother than it should be. NASA released photos

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-7845476273822474612008-10-22T06:38:00.000-04:002008-10-22T06:39:44.400-04:00

SRIHARIKOTA, India, Oct 22 - India launched its first unmanned moon mission on Wednesday following in the footsteps of rival China, as the emerging Asian power celebrated its space ambitions and scientific prowess. Chandrayaan-1 (Moon vehicle), a cuboid spacecraft built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) blasted off from a southern Indian space centre shortly after dawn in a boost

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-51454924064716155662008-10-10T09:52:00.000-04:002008-10-10T09:53:48.366-04:00

Morning Edition, October 10, 2008 · The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday that Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari has won the Nobel Peace Prize. He was cited for his long career of peace mediation work including a 2005 accord between Indonesia and rebels in its Aceh province.by Rob Gifford and Renee Montagne

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-60562515995459188322008-10-09T22:51:00.001-04:002008-10-09T22:54:16.017-04:00

All Things Considered, October 6, 2008 · This year's Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine recognizes two landmarks in the history of viral diseases. Two French researchers won for discovering the virus that causes AIDS. And a German scientist got the prize for showing that human papilloma viruses cause most cases of cervical cancer. The scientists will split the $1.4 million prize. This year's

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-12945775843031179392008-10-09T22:47:00.001-04:002008-10-09T22:49:24.528-04:00

All Things Considered, October 8, 2008 · The scientific work that gets a Nobel Prize these days is often hard to understand and describe. But this year's chemistry award is a crowd pleaser: It went to one Japanese and two American scientists who made things glow in the dark — with a jellyfish gene.Roger Tsien, a professor at the University of California San Diego; Martin Chalfie of Columbia

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-85922146055705922462008-10-09T22:44:00.000-04:002008-10-09T22:45:35.297-04:00

STOCKHOLM, Sweden October 9, 2008, 01:12 pm ET · France's Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for works characterized by "poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy" and focused on the environment, especially the desert.Le Clezio, 68, is the first French writer to win the prestigious award since Chinese-born Frenchman Gao Xingjian was honored in 2000 and the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-69138502993809106962008-10-09T22:39:00.001-04:002008-10-09T22:42:35.854-04:00

Even before the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature was announced Thursday morning, it was already drawing attention — for the wrong reasons. An official of the Swedish Academy — which awards the Nobel Prizes — caused a furor last week when he described American literature as isolated and insular, and therefore unqualified for literature's most prestigious award. Playwright Edward Albee, whose credits

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-62055499659025897652008-10-09T22:34:00.000-04:002008-10-09T22:37:30.899-04:00

All Things Considered, October 9, 2008 · French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature. Antoine Compagnon, a professor of French Literature at Columbia University, says there are two periods in Le Clezio's work: it was more experimental in the 1960s and '70s, and later it featured traveling and exoticism.

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-66483354413838319102008-10-07T22:55:00.000-04:002008-10-07T22:56:34.268-04:00

Three European scientists shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for separate discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer, breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases.French researchers Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were cited for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, in 1983.They shared the award with Germany's Harald zur

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-57594970588420541752008-10-07T22:52:00.001-04:002008-10-07T22:55:10.065-04:00

Morning Edition, October 6, 2008 · The 2008 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine goes to two French scientists for discovering the virus that causes AIDS. A German researcher shares the prize for discovering the viruses that cause cervical cancer. Half the $1.4 million prize goes to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi for their discovery of the AIDS virus. The other half goes to Harald

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-10388719313460450902008-10-07T22:48:00.001-04:002008-10-07T22:51:01.956-04:00

All Things Considered, October 7, 2008 · An American physicist and two Japanese physicists won the Nobel Prize on Tuesday for their work on understanding the breakdown of symmetries in the laws of nature. Most people intuitively know what symmetry is; they see it in people's faces and in snowflakes. But theoretical physicists think about symmetry as it relates to the fundamental workings of the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-68778487670190380262008-10-03T22:38:00.000-04:002008-10-03T22:40:13.825-04:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - NASA has delayed the final service mission of the Atlantis space shuttle to the Hubble space telescope, probably until early 2009, after a "significant anomaly" occurred on the orbiting telescope."It's obvious that October 14 is off the table" for launching Atlantis, John Burch, the shuttle program manager at NASA's space center in Houston, Texas, told a telephone news

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-59382747697467218552008-09-27T21:20:00.001-04:002008-09-27T21:22:16.445-04:00

BEIJING — A Chinese astronaut orbiting the earth lifted himself out of the Shenzhou VII spacecraft Saturday afternoon and performed the nation’s first spacewalk, another milestone in China’s space program.Zhai Zhigang pulled himself out of the orbital module about 4:40 p.m. Beijing time, latched himself to a handrail with two safety cords and then waved to a national audience during a live

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-55892095706524839222008-09-27T21:17:00.001-04:002008-09-27T21:19:33.961-04:00

SHANGHAI — The Chinese Shenzhou VII spacecraft blasted off at 9:07 p.m. Thursday, carrying three Chinese astronauts into space on this country’s third manned space mission in five years.The three-day mission is expected to include the country’s first attempt at a spacewalk.The Chinese government has spent billions of dollars in recent years building up a space program that it hopes will help

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-67955557676324628322008-09-25T19:40:00.000-04:002008-09-25T19:46:03.119-04:00

IT has been variously described as a giant calendar, a place of worship and a royal burial ground.But now, more than 4000 years after its first stones were dragged from the Welsh mountains to the Salisbury plains, Stonehenge may finally have given up its secret. Pictures: Rock stars party at Stonehenge Pictures: Weird wonders of the world Research suggests the eerie monument was a neolithic

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-75253144535096494082008-09-25T19:16:00.001-04:002008-09-25T19:20:22.473-04:00

All Things Considered, September 25, 2008 · When geologist Jonathan O'Neil goes walking on some flat, exposed bedrock on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in Quebec, he believes that he may be walking on the world's oldest rocks."When you actually walk on the rock, it's kind of special just to think, well, I could walk here 4.3 billion years ago and I probably would have walked on the same rocks,"

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-59988721824590577432008-09-19T11:29:00.001-04:002008-09-19T11:31:51.888-04:00

GENEVA - With 30-tone to transform that cools the world' S largest particle collider malfunctioned, sustained pressure physicists to stop using the atom smasher just has day after launching it to great brass band, the European Organization for Nuclear Research said Thursday. The faulty to transform has been replaced and the boxing ring in the 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French to

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-80154821471162840422008-09-11T06:43:00.001-04:002008-09-11T06:45:55.103-04:00

BATAVIA, Ill. — Science rode a beam of subatomic particles and a river of Champagne into the future on Wednesday.After 14 years of labor, scientists at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva successfully activated the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest, most powerful particle collider and, at $8 billion, the most expensive scientific experiment to date. At 4:28 a.m., Eastern time, the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-40659850942494860782008-08-29T10:14:00.002-04:002008-08-29T10:22:19.618-04:00

CUDAHY, Wis. — The deep is legendary for inky darkness. William Beebe, the first person to eye the abyss, called it perpetual night. The darkness is matched by the intense pressure. Four miles down, it amounts to nearly five tons per square inch. That is too much even for Alvin, the most famous of the world’s tiny submersibles, which can take a pilot and two scientists down to a maximum depth of

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-84072395153198860522008-08-01T14:43:00.001-04:002008-08-01T14:44:43.748-04:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Airbus' A380 superjumbo is set to touch down at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport Friday, marking the first commercial arrival of the giant, double-decker passenger plane on U.S. soil.The Emirates aircraft, carrying 489 passengers, took off from Dubai earlier in the day, and is scheduled to arrive at 2.45 p.m. EDT (1845 GMT) after a 14-hour flight.The

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-39974852569487354712008-07-02T22:03:00.001-04:002008-07-02T22:04:55.702-04:00

WASHINGTON - When viewed from the rest of the galaxy, the edge of our solar system appears slightly dented as if a giant hand is pushing one edge of it inward, far-traveling NASA probes reveal. Information from Earth's first space probes to hit the thick edge of the solar system — called the heliosheath where the solar wind slows abruptly — paint a picture that is not the simple circle that

Hzonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-13256207310415135982008-03-31T16:04:00.001-04:002008-03-31T16:06:39.234-04:00

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness's account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-91000995721800155942008-03-07T15:21:00.000-05:002008-03-07T15:24:19.293-05:00

"Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer has summarized for his readers the new results released by NASA from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has been surveying the 3K microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang. Some of the most interesting results: The age of the universe is now known to unprecedented accuracy: 13.73 billion years old, +/- 120 million. Spacetime is flat to

Hzonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-71527467797891816032007-11-21T12:51:00.000-05:002007-11-21T13:00:21.378-05:00

LONDON - This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever. How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders,

Hzonoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-90833772017378896252007-11-21T12:44:00.000-05:002007-11-21T12:47:13.653-05:00

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 — It has been more than six years since President Bush, in the first major televised address of his presidency, drew a stark moral line against the destruction of human embryos in medical research.Since then, he has steadfastly maintained that scientists would come up with an alternative method of developing embryonic stem cells, one that did not involve killing

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-59095511016179718062007-11-12T09:05:00.000-05:002007-11-12T09:12:07.999-05:00

More than 3,000 years after his death, King Tutankhamun went on display to the public yesterday in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, a slightly bucktoothed boy who died aged 19. King Tut’s mummified face – which has been seen only by about 50 people since the British archaeologist Howard Carter opened the tomb exactly 85 years ago – was revealed to the world in a climate-controlled glass

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-34889631854921908112007-11-12T08:58:00.000-05:002007-11-12T09:02:15.595-05:00

LIMA (Reuters) - A 4,000-year-old temple filled with murals has been unearthed on the northern coast of Peru, making it one of the oldest finds in the Americas, a leading archaeologist said on Saturday. The temple, inside a larger ruin, includes a staircase that leads up to an altar used for fire worship at a site scientists have called Ventarron, said Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva, who led

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-44712686014852518742007-11-06T16:47:00.000-05:002007-11-06T16:48:12.581-05:00

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A comet that unexpectedly brightened in the last couple of weeks and is now visible to the naked eye is attracting professional and amateur interest. Paul Lewis, director of astronomy outreach at the University of Tennessee, is drawing students to the roof of the Nielsen Physics Building for special viewings of Comet 17P/Holmes.The comet is exploding and its coma, a cloud of

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-72080489293536405742007-11-06T16:39:00.000-05:002007-11-06T16:41:32.886-05:00

LUXOR, Egypt - King Tut's buck-toothed face was unveiled Sunday for the first time in public — more than 3,000 years after the youngest and most famous pharaoh to rule ancient Egypt was shrouded in linen and buried in his golden underground tomb. Archeologists carefully lifted thae fragile mummy out of a quartz sarcophagus decorated with stone-carved protective goddesses, momentarily pulling

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-40358779393867240692007-10-27T07:58:00.000-04:002007-10-27T08:01:15.787-04:00

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A cold spot in the oldest radiation in the universe could be the first sign of a cosmic glitch that might have originated shortly after the Big Bang, British and Spanish scientists said on Thursday. They think this spot -- detected on satellite maps of microwave radiation -- might be a cosmic defect or texture, a holdover from the universe's infancy. But they said their theory

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-75241719311224214902007-10-19T12:19:00.000-04:002007-10-27T08:43:00.110-04:00

New images uncover 25 secrets about the Mona Lisa, including proof that Leonardo da Vinci gave her eyebrows, solving a long-held mystery.The images are part of an exhibition, "Mona Lisa Secrets Revealed," which will feature new research by French engineer Pascal Cotte and debut in the United States at the Metreon in San Francisco. The Mona Lisa showcase is part of a larger exhibition called "Da

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-58100949123920319752007-10-15T19:00:00.000-04:002007-10-15T19:02:54.586-04:00

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was awarded to three American economists today for creating and developing a sophisticated explanation of the interaction among individuals, markets and institutions. Their work, called mechanism design theory, has influenced thinking on a wide range of problems in economics and political science, from the design of government bond auctions to patent

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-34951302590416741062007-10-12T13:16:00.000-04:002007-10-12T13:20:49.207-04:00

OSLO, Oct. 12 — The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded today to Al Gore, the former vice president, and to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work to alert the world to the threat of global warming. The award immediately renewed calls from Mr. Gore’s supporters for him to run for president in 2008, joining an already crowded field of Democrats. Mr. Gore, who lost

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-74696987745576281692007-10-10T12:37:00.000-04:002007-10-10T12:41:16.542-04:00

A German scientist whose studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces have implications for the environment won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry today. Gerhard Ertl’s work in surface chemistry has applications across a broad array of fields, and helps explain the processes in manufacturing computer chips, in the function of automobiles’ catalytic converters and on the surface of stratospheric ice

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-30996280840644748112007-10-10T12:32:00.000-04:002007-10-10T12:35:06.841-04:00

Two physicists who discovered how to manipulate the magnetic and electrical properties of thin layers of atoms to store vast amounts of data on tiny disks, making iPods and other wonders of modern life possible, were chosen as winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics yesterday.Albert Fert, of the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, and Peter Grünberg, of the Institute of Solid State Research at

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-50018691681613287002007-10-10T12:21:00.000-04:002007-10-10T12:25:10.967-04:00

Two Americans and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine yesterday for developing the immensely powerful “knockout” technology, which allows scientists to create animal models of human disease in mice.The winners, who will share the $1.54 million prize, are Mario R. Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City; Oliver Smithies, 82, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-9817029336917846652007-09-18T07:15:00.000-04:002007-09-18T07:19:35.927-04:00

Where do moral rules come from? From reason, some philosophers say. From God, say believers. Seldom considered is a source now being advocated by some biologists, that of evolution.At first glance, natural selection and the survival of the fittest may seem to reward only the most selfish values. But for animals that live in groups, selfishness must be strictly curbed or there will be no advantage

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-54154424232188076352007-09-15T16:13:00.000-04:002007-09-15T16:17:40.609-04:00

Two surgeons who developed prosthetic heart valves that have prolonged the lives of millions of people are among the winners of this year’s Lasker awards, widely considered the nation’s most prestigious medical prizes.Drs. Alain Carpentier, 74, of the Georges Pompidou hospital in Paris, and Albert Starr, 81, of the Providence Health System in Portland, Ore., are among three American and one

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-59593874848458718632007-09-05T07:23:00.000-04:002007-09-05T07:26:33.283-04:00

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - They aren't certain, but underwater archaeologists say they may have discovered a boulder with a prehistoric carving in Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay.The granite rock has markings that resemble a mastodon — an elephant-like creature that once inhabited parts of North America — with what could be a spear in its side, say divers who have seen it.They came across the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-41297091037449810702007-09-05T07:14:00.000-04:002007-09-05T07:16:36.199-04:00

JERUSALEM - Archaeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found.The findings in the ruins of the city of Rehov this summer include 30 intact hives dating to around 900 B.C., archaeologist Amihai Mazar of Jerusalem's Hebrew

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-31466963512478930072007-09-04T06:32:00.000-04:002007-09-04T06:36:19.430-04:00

The race to decode the human genome may not be entirely over: the loser has come up with a new approach that may let him prevail in the end.In 2003, a government-financed consortium of academic centers announced it had completed the human genome, fending off a determined challenge from the biologist J. Craig Venter. The consortium’s genome comprised just half the DNA contained in a normal cell,

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-38128004172394965702007-07-02T07:09:00.000-04:002007-07-02T07:12:47.559-04:00

BEIJING (Reuters) - The tomb of China's first emperor, guarded for more than 2,000 years by 8,000 terracotta warriors and horses, has yielded up another archaeological secret.After five years of research, archaeologists have confirmed that a 30-meter-high building is buried in the vast mausoleum of Emperor Qinshihuang near the former capital, Xian, in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, Xinhua

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-80378050549202479822007-07-02T06:31:00.000-04:002007-07-02T06:35:03.614-04:00

It may be possible to glimpse before the supposed beginning of time into the universe prior to the Big Bang, researchers now say.Unfortunately, any such picture will always be fuzzy at best due to a kind of "cosmic forgetfulness." The Big Bang is often thought as the start of everything, including time, making any questions about what happened during it or beforehand nonsensical. Recently

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-33074133408516932952007-06-30T08:00:00.000-04:002007-06-30T08:02:25.305-04:00

This weekend's full moon hangs lower in the sky than any other full moon of 2007, according to NASA, and it's a good time to be fooled.When low on the horizon, the Moon can appear to be larger than when it's higher in the sky. It's all an illusion, scientists say, and it does not involve any enlarging effects of the atmosphere. Rather, it's all in your mind. Here's how it works:Our brains think

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-45376237898338391302007-06-27T07:22:00.000-04:002007-06-27T07:25:18.667-04:00

A single tooth and some DNA clues appear to have solved the mystery of the lost mummy of Hatshepsut, one of the great queens of ancient Egypt, who reigned in the 15th century B.C.Archaeologists who conducted the research, to be announced formally today in Cairo, said this was the first mummy of an Egyptian ruler to be found and “positively identified” since King Tutankhamen’s tomb was opened in

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-49935596276125328062007-06-24T07:40:00.000-04:002007-06-24T07:44:54.319-04:00

CAIRO (AFP) - Archaeologists have discovered the 3,000-year-old mummy of a high priest to the god Amun in the southern city of Luxor, antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass told the official MENA news agency on Saturday.The 18th Dynasty mummy of Sennefer was unearthed in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings -- one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world -- by a team from Britain's Cambridge

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-60198175051416728162007-06-19T07:22:00.000-04:002007-06-19T07:26:13.833-04:00

With the Space Shuttle Atlantis scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, skywatchers across much of the United States and southern Canada are in for a real treat on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Should weather conditions permit to offer clear skies, there will be a few opportunities to see both the Atlantis orbiter and the ISS flying across the sky from

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-29464761079689407072007-06-06T20:53:00.000-04:002007-06-06T20:59:05.467-04:00

In a surprising advance that could sidestep the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient’s cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease.The advance is an easy-to-use technique for reprogramming a skin cell of a mouse back to the embryonic state. Embryonic cells

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-12103571115887546532007-05-28T12:08:00.000-04:002007-05-28T12:12:34.037-04:00

Thursday, May 31 brings us the second of two full Moons for North Americans this month. Some almanacs and calendars assert that when two full Moons occur within a calendar month, that the second full Moon is called the "Blue Moon." The full Moon that night will likely look no different than any other full Moon. But the Moon can change color in certain conditions. After forest fires or volcanic

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-36817336252982011562007-05-18T09:28:00.000-04:002007-05-18T09:30:10.889-04:00

Don't click on attachments? Good. Always keep that firewall turned on? Even better. Stay away from the Internet's unsavory neighborhoods? Better still. Think you are protected? Wrong. Computer criminals are evolving their tactics to subdue your computer, experts say. Each time you invest more money and time in staying safe, the bad guys just find another way around your defenses. Their newest

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-24889982931627928502007-05-17T23:07:00.000-04:002007-05-17T23:12:08.776-04:00

Carnivorous sponges, blind creepy-crawlies adorned with hairy antennae and ribbed worms are just some of the new characters found to inhabit the dark abysses of the Southern Ocean, an alien abode once thought devoid of such life. Recent expeditions have uncloaked this polar region, finding nearly 600 species of organisms never described before and challenging some assumptions that deep-sea

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-63185694170502547962007-05-17T07:15:00.000-04:002007-05-17T07:22:16.092-04:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - NASA unveiled Thursday a model of the massive space telescope that will replace the aging Hubble in 2013 and allow scientists to observe the formation of the first galaxies at the dawning of the universe. The US National Aeronautics and Space Agency displayed in Washington a full-scale model of the James Webb (news, bio, voting record) Space Telescope, which scientists hope

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-11416200712708183912007-05-08T07:02:00.000-04:002007-05-08T07:15:49.418-04:00

JERUSALEM (AFP) - An Israeli archaeologist said on Tuesday that the tomb of King Herod, famed for expanding the Jewish second temple during his reign in the first century BC, had been discovered in the occupied West Bank.Pieces of an elaborate sarcophagus believed to contain Herod's remains were found three weeks ago, Ehud Netzer, professor of archaeology at Hebrew University, told a news

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-24228667823552055932007-05-08T06:56:00.000-04:002007-05-08T06:59:11.291-04:00

WASHINGTON - A massive exploding faraway star — the brightest supernova astronomers have ever seen — has scientists wondering whether a similar celestial fireworks show may light up the sky much closer to Earth sometime soon.The discovery, announced Monday by NASA, drew oohs and aahs for months from the handful of astronomers who peered through telescopes to see the fuzzy remnants of the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-23498788645847732702007-05-04T06:37:00.000-04:002007-05-04T07:01:27.141-04:00

WASHINGTON - Researchers have cracked a mystery at the core of Mercury — and say there's molten fluid inside the tiny planet. They did it by using the same trick as cooks who want to know if an egg is raw or hard-boiled. The finding helps explain the unexpected discovery several years ago that Mercury has a small magnetic field.The discovery of the magnetic field by the Mariner 10 spacecraft

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-46433884724012754902007-04-27T10:10:00.000-04:002007-04-27T10:16:01.831-04:00

This exoplanet - as astronomers call planets around a star other than the Sun - is the smallest ever found up to now [1] and it completes a full orbit in 13 days. It is 14 times closer to its star than the Earth is from the Sun. However, given that its host star, the red dwarf Gliese 581 [2], is smaller and colder than the Sun - and thus less luminous - the planet nevertheless lies in the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-88405425271602374092007-04-25T07:10:00.000-04:002007-04-25T07:16:34.815-04:00

WASHINGTON - For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe." The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-35013346279373622212007-04-20T09:57:00.000-04:002007-04-20T10:24:59.992-04:00

Astronomers have recorded heavenly music bellowed out by the Sun's atmosphere.Snagging orchestra seats for this solar symphony would be fruitless, however, as the frequency of the sound waves is below the human hearing threshold. While humans can make out sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz, the solar sound waves are on the order of milli-hertz--a thousandth of a hertz.The study, presented this

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-21170536827491222762007-04-06T08:08:00.000-04:002007-04-06T08:22:25.348-04:00

Cut the chatter! The ancient mystery surrounding the great acoustics of the theater at Epidaurus in Greece has been solved.The theater, dating to the 4th century B.C. and arranged in 55 semi-circular rows, remains the great masterwork of Polykleitos the Younger. Audiences of up to an estimated 14,000 have long been able to hear actors and musicians—unamplified—from even the back row of the

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-66620081180560322442007-03-23T09:57:00.000-04:002007-03-23T10:00:52.634-04:00

PARIS (AFP) - France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades.The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists."It

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-53515677314130693642007-03-20T07:05:00.000-04:002007-03-20T07:08:22.441-04:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) - After four years of intensive collaboration, 18 top mathematicians and computer scientists from the United States and Europe have successfully mapped E8, one of the largest and most complicated structures in mathematics, scientists said late Sunday.Jeffrey Adams, project leader and mathematics professor at the University of Maryland said E8 was discovered over a century ago, in

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-23805222489039444232007-03-18T10:30:00.000-04:002007-03-18T10:36:28.940-04:00

Mars is unlikely to sport beachfront property anytime soon, but the planet has enough water ice at its south pole to blanket the entire planet in more than 30 feet of water if everything thawed out.With a radar technique, astronomers have penetrated for the first time about 2.5 miles (nearly four kilometers) beneath the south pole's frozen surface. The data showed that nearly pure water ice lies

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12206098.post-53523491939704628102007-03-18T10:11:00.000-04:002007-03-18T10:15:07.151-04:00

VIENNA, Austria - It looks like a color-coded terror alert scale — and meteorologically speaking, that's exactly what it is. With climate change making conditions more unpredictable, national weather services from across the European Union have joined forces to create http://www.meteoalarm.eu — a new Web site providing up-to-the-minute information on "extreme weather" across the continent.The

Hzonoreply@blogger.com0